


Awake

by wordsthatkeepyouhome



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Angst, Gen, Post-Reichenbach
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-06-10
Updated: 2012-06-10
Packaged: 2017-11-07 10:35:52
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,224
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/430121
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wordsthatkeepyouhome/pseuds/wordsthatkeepyouhome
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>John hasn't slept since it had happened. Refuses to sleep. Absolutely cannot sleep. Because when he closes his eyes, he watches Sherlock die.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Awake

John hasn't slept since it had happened.  _ **Refuses**_  to sleep. Absolutely  _ **cannot**_  sleep. Because when he closes his eyes, he is back at Bart's. A feeling of helplessness and utter uselessness settles over him. He watches from the street, looking up at his friend, his  _ **best**_ friend, Sherlock Holmes so dangerously close to the edge of the roof. John stares intently at the silhouette, willing and wishing his mind could somehow move Sherlock or push him to safety. Random thoughts make themselves known and John catalogues all the super powers he wishes he had in that moment – telekinesis, flight or making time stand still. But all of these amount to just one thing… John wishes he wasn't ordinary.

The words coming out of his mouth have no effect. They cannot save him. They cannot keep him. A complete waste of breath, the words have failed him and John may never speak again, may never write again. John sees the words he had written – loving, awestruck and deserved praise – turn sharp ( _knives, daggers, spears_ ) and vengeful, prodding Sherlock and pointing at his back. A dead man walking. Walking the plank.

_Sherlock had wanted to be a pirate._ The thought interrupts his visualization and John gasps into awareness. He is sitting in his chair, right across from Sherlock's empty one. he continues staring at it.

John doesn't sleep.  _ **Tries**_  to not sleep. But something has shut down within him and he  _can't, can't, can't,_ stop himself seeing. Sherlock on the roof. On the pavement. His blood, his precious blood, crimson against the grey and his pale skin. His eyes, his dynamic, ever-changing eyes, now frozen and dead. When John sleeps, he sees Sherlock die. Watches him. Waits for the sight of his crumpled, broken and lifeless body. Expects it.

_Why though? Why? Where were the warning signs and why didn't I notice?_

His search for the answers drives him, pushes him and keeps him awake. He searches the flat, but comes up empty. Nothing in the kitchen, the living room and on the dining table. He tries Sherlock's computer but doesn't know the password, making a mental note to ask Mycroft to hack into it. John checks his own computer to see if Sherlock left him anything. A clue. A letter maybe. Nothing.

John's heart rate spikes.

_Sherlock's room. It had to be there. Has to be._

His heart is reacting to the desperation in his thoughts. It beats faster, as if grasping at straws, hanging on for dear life at the edge of the cliff, fighting for every inch and every beat. Absolutely,  _ **desperately**_ hanging on.

John walks toward the door slowly, each step carefully and agonizingly slow. He wants to prolong the sensation. The hopeful adrenaline his heart is now pumping through his arteries and veins. He is hopeful,  _ **very**_  hopeful and  _ **certain**_ that Sherlock would have left him something. But he saves a space in the back of his mind for the doubt, for the heart-crushing disappointment of finding nothing.

His hand is on the door knob. He allows himself a deep breath, bracing himself before turning it. a memory resurfaces in his mind and he almost expects to see Sherlock flail and fall to the floor. But the room is empty and it kills him a little. He shrugs it off and focuses on why he is in there in the first place.

His eyes scan the room first, then his gaze lands on the bed. He sees a bright orange fabric sticking out from under the pillows and feels a smile tug at the corners of his lips as he sits on the bed and thumbs it. It is Sherlock's shock blanket from their first case together.  _A Study in Pink_ , John thinks bitterly. It is the title of the first case he had written up the start of his and Sherlock's lives as internet celebrities. The first nail in his friend's coffin.

John remembers how Sherlock had grabbed it off his shoulders and flung it inside the police car before ducking under the yellow crime scene tape to get to John, having already deduced that he was the shooter. It is the first time John saves his life and he wishes more than anything that he could have saved him this time as well.

John remembers how, on Sherlock's birthday, DI Greg Lestrade had given Sherlock this shock blanket. He remembers the look on Sherlock's face before he unwraps the present – the  _'what stupid thing have you thought of this time'_ look – a mixture of exasperation and a bit of annoyance. He also remembers the shock on all their faces when Sherlock looks in awe of the hideous orange thing, hugs Greg awkwardly and thanks him.  _Sentiment. Maybe Sherlock was human after all._

Now, in Sherlock's room, among the many text books and reference books, the periodic table of elements hanging on the wall and the martial arts certificate above his bed, the blanket is tucked underneath the pillows. John smiles fondly at the mental image of Sherlock sleeping with it, so much like the child he honestly was. No matter how well a person disguises himself, it is always a self-portrait. Perhaps, the same can be said about this room.

Tears well in John's eyes and he brushes them off quickly. Then, he pulls out the shock blanket. He hears the crisp crunch of paper before he sees it – a sheet of white, ruled paper hidden between the folds. His hand reaches for it instinctively, almost automatically before his brain could even process his intention.  _I was right! He_ _ **did**_ _leave something._ John's heart hammered wildly in his chest.  _He had planned it. It was just a trick. A magic trick. He's not dead. Sherlock Holmes always has a plan. Always._ Hands trembling, John begins to read.

Formaldehyde  
Milk  
Tea  
Jam for John  
Beans

He flips it over, frustrated to see the clean, blank page. He holds it up against the light. He considers the possibility it might be a code.  _F.M.T.J.B._  Desperately,  _ **desperately**_ trying to decipher it, but his heart already knows before he can accept it. And it sinks and sinks but doesn't stop. And John thinks and almost  _ **believes**_ it was cruel to not have stopped.

He glances back down at the shopping list and holds it close to his chest. He doesn't crumple it, tear it to shreds or set it on fire. John doesn't hate it for letting him believe or letting him hope for that single, wonderful and glorious moment that Sherlock wasn't dead. There is nothing but the empty and cold reality he had unsuccessfully tried to escape or reinvent. There is nothing except the fact that John was alone and Sherlock had killed himself.

John carefully puts the blanket over his shoulders, grabbing at the edges to hold it closer to his body. Sherlock's room has suddenly turned chilly despite the sunlight streaming from the windows. John shivers as he gets up and closes the door behind him. He walks back to his chair, sits and stares once more. With the insignificant note and Sherlock's shock blanket for company, John doesn't sleep.  _ **Refuses**_  to sleep. Absolutely  _ **cannot**_  sleep. Because when he sleeps he watches Sherlock die, but when he's awake, he's just simply waiting for a miracle.


End file.
